Green Anarchism

Green anarchism is a school of thought within anarchism which puts a particular emphasis on environmental issues. A green anarchist theory is normally one that extends anarchist ideology beyond a critique of human interactions, and includes a critique of the interactions between humans and non-humans as well. This often culminates in an anarchist revolutionary praxis that is not merely dedicated to human liberation, but also to some form of nonhuman liberation, and that aims to bring about an environmentally sustainable anarchist society.

Important early influences were Henry David Thoreau, Leo Tolstoy and Élisée Reclus.

More recently, John Zerzan is an American anarchist and anarcho-primitivist philosopher and author. His works criticize agricultural civilization as inherently oppressive, and advocate drawing upon the ways of life of hunter gatherers as an inspiration for what a free society should look like. Some subjects of his criticism include domestication, language, symbolic thought (such as mathematics and art) and the concept of time.

Anarcho-primitivism is an anarchist critique of the origins and progress of civilization. According to anarcho-primitivism, the shift from hunter-gatherer to agricultural subsistence gave rise to social stratification, coercion, and alienation. Anarcho-primitivists advocate a return to non-"civilized" ways of life through deindustrialisation, abolition of the division of labour or specialization, and abandonment of large-scale organization technologies. There are other non-anarchist forms of primitivism, and not all primitivists point to the same phenomenon as the source of modern, civilized problems. Anarcho-primitivists are often distinguished by their focus on the praxis of achieving a feral state of being through "rewilding".

There are also social anarchist forms of anarchism that focus on ecology and environmental issues (Social Ecology, Veganarchism) , but for purposes of clarity, they are better left under the social anarchism banner, while 'green anarchism' is generally taken to mean any school of anarchist thought that critiques or rejects civilization.

Green anarchism is all about resisting industry and living a simpler life with a smaller footprint. It's a way to remove yourself from the crushing machine to pursue a more sustainable lifestyle, and encourage others to follow the example you set.

Everything Green Anarchists do in life is done with intention and while thinking of the effects our actions have on everything else, right down to the micro-organisms in the soil. We avoid doing harm to things with no ability to defend themselves, while working to destroy the institutions and systems that power the machine that crushes the life out of our planet. [OP]

Almost all political ideologies revolve around the idea of exploiting the Earth for profit, to 'better' the lives of people through mass industry.

Even socialism, which came about at the birth of the industrial age to give workers a bigger share of the pie is very industry-minded. Industrial growth is at the epicenter of capitalism, fascism and socialism.

To find a politic that doesn't put industrial workers above the Earth and the ever-shrinking list of people who live in harmony with it, you need to go past economics, past markets, past the perverse constructed concepts of hierarchy and work and pretty much throw out the entire concept of political ideology.

Anarchy is the opposition to authority. All authority is used against the Earth and its inhabitants to benefit those that brandish it.

The only way to truly protect the Earth's ecosystems from destruction is to condemn any attempt to legitimize authority. When an authority gains acceptance as being legitimate, the authority is free to excuse almost any atrocity it commits as being justified.

Green anarchy sees civilization as the root of all authority.

When humans adopted agricultural practices at the dawn of civilization, it forced us into a box that we've struggled to escape from ever since. It led to land being seen as something that needed to be possessed. To people and other animals being seen as laborers that needed to be coerced into working the land for the benefit of the land 'owners' and their immense wealth.

The concept of private property began with agriculture, with the most fertile lands being highly sought after by the most powerful; who would send entire armies into battle to conquer them as their possessions.

They'd then enslave the former inhabitants and force them to work the land and export the food to their Kingdom.

Civilization largely depends on the violent act of dominating and controlling the land and everything on it for the benefit of the rich. To 'civilize' a 'savage' (free person) was to enslave them. Sometimes literally, and sometimes figuratively (via exporting industrial capitalism around the world and forcing people to stop roaming free as hunter-gatherers and instead settle down on privately owned land to labor for others).

Green anarchy opposes all authority starting from the very concept of civilization and it makes no excuses for it. [OP]